Fashion and Blockprinting
I attribute my love of expressing myself with clothing to the fact that Iʻve spent half of my life wearing a private school uniform. In the same vein, I attribute my love for our ‘āina (land) to the fact that itʻs ingrained in my being as a Hawaiian existing in Hawaii. For a lot of people the two donʻt go hand in hand due to fast fashion, the desperation many local businesses face to make money to support their families and the rising cost of living especially here in Hawaii.
Cue up-cycling by block printing. One of the first pieces I made after I started selling my prints was a hand printed table runner made right before the 2020 holiday season. The runners featured a hand-carved repeating ti-leaf lei design I had carved on a whim.
original ti-leaf table runner
While I continued to focus mainly on block print wall art I would occasionally hand print shirts, blankets, and totes to feed my creativity when printing on paper felt a little mundane. After the initial table runner release I never sold any of my other hand printed soft goods but Iʻd feature them on my instagram. It drew peoples attention and garnered interest among peers and followers.
year of the hare totes for 2023
Seeing how interested people were to either do some up-cycling of their own, or have me create a one of a kind piece of clothing for them I had a stroke of inspiration to do a workshop. I reached out to a few zero-waste stores to hopefully host a class that aligned with their mission of curating an atmosphere of salvaging and saving our resources to better care for our planet. During the late summer of 2023 (when I had this initial idea) the momentum stalled when the fire destroyed Lahaina town. Understandably most businesses came to a halt to focus our hearts, time and resources on our community in need.
The opportunity to host a block printing workshop fell into my lap later in the fall. A business connection turned friend was at the time organizing workshops for a new cafe opening in Hilo, my hometown. We got in touch and I pitched the idea of an up-cycling workshop I had dreamed of doing, everyone was on board and we had a very successful first run!
old jeans made new
Hopefully this will be a semi-normal occurrence. If you wish to attend a block printing/up-cycling class please follow my instagram @malie.moana for updates on any future workshops on Big Island and Maui.
